than a month away from massive cuts in federal spending that could lead to layoffs of employees at the pentagon and elsewhere. we have more from capitol hill. nancy, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, charlie and nora. around here, congress likes to call those cuts the sequester. and both sides have long predicted it could harm the economy if the cuts are allowed to kick in. instead of working together to do something about it, they've resorted to the blame game a month before the deadline. republicans may be the party of spending cuts, but on monday, house speaker john boehner insisted the looming sequester was the president's idea. >> the president first proposed this sequester in 2011 and insisted that it be part of the debt limit agreement. >> reporter: unless congress acts, the package of cuts worth $1.2 trillion, will start to kick in on march 1 taking a $55 billion bite out of this year's defense budget and $27 billion from domestic discretionary spending. according to the congressional budget office, more than a million jobs are at risk. defense secretary leon panetta had this war